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Saturday, April 18, 2015

Blog Tour Guest Post : The Water and the Wild by K. E. Ormsbee PLUS GIVEAWAY

Please welcome K. E. Ormsbee to GreenBeanTeenQueen! K.E. Ormsbee is the author of The Water and the Wild. I asked her to share about libraries and I love the libraries she talks about! She even shared pictures and I want to visit these libraries now!

About K. E. Ormsbee: I was born and raised in the Bluegrass State. Then I went off and lived in places across the pond, like England and Spain, where I pretended I was a French ingénue. Just kidding! That only happened once. I also lived in some hotter nooks of the USA, like Birmingham, AL and Austin, TX. Now I'm back in Lexington, KY, where there is a Proper Autumn.

In my wild, early years, I taught English as a Foreign Language, interned with a film society, and did a lot of irresponsible road tripping. My crowning achievement is that the back of my head was in an iPhone commercial, and people actually paid me money for it.

Nowadays, I teach piano lessons, play in a band you've never heard of, and run races that I never win. I likes clothes from the 60s, music from the 70s, and movies from the 80s. I still satiate my bone-deep wanderlust whenever I can.

I’m only
slightly exaggerating when I say I grew up in the library. Both my parents were
educators who read to me constantly and taught me how to read for myself. They
created one insatiable bookworm. I munched through books with a voracious
appetite, and I looked forward to my weekly visit to the library more than I
did trips to the pizzeria. Oh yeah. I was a Supreme Nerd.

Growing up, I
was well acquainted with many public library branches in my hometown of
Lexington, KY. I knew which branch had the best Middle Grade section
(Beaumont), which had the best storyteller (Lansdowne), and which had the
coolest CD collection (Central).

On occasion,
I even got to visit the behemoth William T. Young Library on the University of
Kentucky’s campus. Truth be told, a college library was pretty boring stuff to
nine-year-old Kathryn, but I loved
skipping through the automated sliding bookshelves, deliciously terrified that
the motion sensors might not detect me. To be crushed in the Anthropology
section would be a spectacular way to go, reasoned Little Kathryn. I was a
pretty morbid kiddo.

I’ve always
considered libraries to be magical places, and I’ve discovered some rather spectacular
ones in my travels, from London to Prague to Seville to Cambridge. I mean, take
a peek at this teeny but cozy library at King’s College, Cambridge:

(Magical,
right? Magical.)

It wasn’t
until my senior year of college, however, that I discovered the Library of
Dreams, the Library to End All Libraries, MY FAVORITE LIBRARY. In 2011, I set
foot in the newly opened Library in the Forest in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. And
yes, this library is just as cool as it sounds.

Library in
the Forest, which is located on the edge of nine wooded acres, is Alabama’s
first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified
facility. My personal favorite feature of the library is the Treehouse Reading
Room, a special space where you can read suspended above the forest.

I spent many days
studying at Library in the Forest, soaking in the natural light from its giant
windows and watching kids explore the surrounding area on class field trips.
Whenever I reached my writing limit, I knew I could just rip out my earbuds,
swing on my backpack, and step out into the great outdoors for a hike.

But it’s not just Library
in the Forest’s location or facilities that make it so cool. It’s the people
who tirelessly work to provide the community with great programming and
countless opportunities for kids and teens to learn and explore. What makes the
library extra special to me is all the time I spent there with friends who
loved the winning combo of books, nature, and community-minded programming just
as much as I did.

It seems rather
fitting, then, that I worked on revisions for The Water and the Wild while at Library in the Forest, since the
importance of nature, stories, and friendship are all central to Lottie Fiske’s
story. I think all three of those things carry a little bit of magic in them,
whether they’re found in the pages of a fantasy book or in a library just
outside Birmingham, Alabama.

So! Next time you’re
in the area, be sure to stop by the very special Library in the Forest. I hope you’ll
feel the magic, too.

About The Water and the Wild: A green apple tree grows in the heart of Thirsby Square, and tangled up in its magical roots is the story of Lottie Fiske. For as long as Lottie can remember, the only people who seem to care about her are her best friend, Eliot, and the mysterious letter writer who sends her birthday gifts. But now strange things are happening on the island Lottie calls home, and Eliot's getting sicker, with a disease the doctors have given up trying to cure. Lottie is helpless, useless, powerless—until a door opens in the apple tree. Follow Lottie down through the roots to another world in pursuit of the impossible: a cure for the incurable, a use for the useless, and protection against the pain of loss.

Want to win a copy? Leave a comment below to enter to win a signed copy!

4 comments:

This delightful book is extremely beautiful, emotional, and meaningful and profound. I would love to meet Lottie and find out what transpires, help Elliot with his illness and cure him and for their lives to improve and live with happiness and a long and productive life. This novel resonates with me since Elliot is my husband, I am ill and hope to get better and in life sometimes we feel useless and are at a loss why. Thanks for this wonderful library post which I enjoyed greatly and for this treasure of a book which I would cherish. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com